Friday was the most productive night of Pacioretty’s career from a points perspective, but he’s been the difference for Montreal many times over the last three seasons.

The 25-year-old might not be a household name, but he is nevertheless one of the best snipers in the league today. Since the start of the 2011-12 campaign, Pacioretty ranks fifth in the NHL with 86 goals in 192 games, behind just Corey Perry, Phil Kessel, Steven Stamkos, and Alex Ovechkin.

Not bad for a guy that comes with a $4.5 million cap hit through the 2018-19 campaign.

What’s more, he’s only been getting better lately. He leads the league in goals since his previous hat trick on Nov. 19, according to RDS’ Francois Gagnon.

Overall he now ranks fourth with 38 goals and a league-leading 11 of them have been game winners. For all that success though, he has no points in four career postseason games. If he can carry this momentum into the 2014 playoffs, then it won’t be long before hockey fans outside of Montreal start holding him in much higher regard.

Max is a great example of being patient on a young player and not overreacting to the first sign of controversy.

He struggled early in his career with being consistent and eventually landed down in the AHL. At the time ppl started to use the word “bust”, and it only got worse when he made comments about preferring to stay in Hamilton over riding the bench in Montreal.

However the team didn’t overreact to the slight (as everything with the Habs it was largely media overblown).